A Hatchling for Springtide (Santaclaws Book 2) by Marc Secchia

Author:Marc Secchia [Secchia, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-17T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12: Onward to Gold

11th of Marus Month

Fall of Winterfall

KEIR HAD NEVER CONSIDERED himself one for portents, but the sight of that almighty Darkfall storm looming behind the Dragon Kings peaks made his neck prickle as if he were being slowly spit-roasted for an Ogre’s breakfast. Deep purple thunderheads piled upon each other until they reached miles up into the sky. All that pent-up power gave him a visceral shudder; he sensed it made Auroral Storm Diamond skittish, too. Was that not her birthplace? Yet her behaviour betrayed mistrust, even fear – which did not square up in the slightest. He gave the phenomenon such a prolonged, suspicious glare that Rhyl in passing teased him about attempting to intimidate the storm out of their path.

Girls. Simultaneously vexatious and indispensable.

“Keir!” his father roared. “Stop yer lollygagging and get ye to work!”

He barely had half a mug of fragrant tea inside his belly. Gulping down the remainder, he rushed off to get started.

Father, being father, was bark, bustle and bite where needed. Quite the localised storm. However, with a hearty chuckle here and a comradely backslap there, he had the entire company up and running in far less time than Keir thought possible. Meantime, he clambered over the Abyss on a nice loose loop of rope, trying not to think too hard about how he had visited it last time around. Rhyl came close on his heels. She climbed ropes as if born to them – which she was, he supposed. Not much to choose between ropes and jungle vines.

He should say something about a more important topic, however. Rhyllaryssill-my –

She’s alright, Keirthynal-my-heart.

Uh … As usual, his cousin stole all logic and reason straight off the tip of his tongue.

The Lailan-Sarémia-tay-Vænar – that’s what you were concerned about, right?

Is my every worry written upon my forehead? he asked irritably. Two nights with little sleep had given him a pounding headache.

Quite. Keep trying to outpace a slug over there, slow-blossom.

Slugs and blossoms? Hardly a way to improve his mood! Keir scrambled up the final section of the hawser, deliberately kicking down some snow to annoy Rhyl. She did not annoy easily. Instead, she just smacked his foot and bade him move his overstuffed Elf butt at a pace faster than bark peeling off a tree.

Descriptive of a morn, wasn’t he?

He could not grit his teeth any harder without breaking one.

When they were safely up the other side and checking the tree to which the hawser tensioning mechanism was affixed, he asked her to explain what she meant about the Mother Tree.

Looking downcast, she said, She intimated that there might be a rebirth process and that I was somehow to be involved in it – I just don’t know how. She was so … so ageless, and wise, and melancholy about dying, and that’s what upset me. Now I see the Mother Tree might have meant that Her death was somehow necessary to give birth to the Dragon Egg. I don’t understand why She even chose someone like me, I mean, I’m so … inadequate, for any task like this.

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